This blog continues to share ideas and hopes to generate discussion on social business, knowledge management, and emerging technologies. It also increasingly covers my home, New Orleans, my painting, and travels.

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March 05, 2010

Social Media in the Inc. 500: 2007 - 2009

The Center for
Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth conducted a
study on social media by Nora Barnes and Eric Mattson on the usage of social
media in fast-growing corporations. All interviews took place in October and
November of 2009. The 2009 study looks again at the Inc. Magazine 500 social
media usage for the third consecutive year, allowing for a longitudinal study
of corporate use of social media.

In 2007, the study
found that the Inc. 500 was outpacing the more traditional and larger Fortune
500 companies in their use of social media. For example, with blogs, the 2007
some research showed that 8% of the Fortune 500 companies were blogging compared
to 19% of the Inc. 500. This difference continued in 2008 with 16% of the
Fortune 500 blogging vs. 39% of the Inc. 500. And it appears the Inc. 500’s
lead in blogging will continue in 2009 with the Inc. 500 now blogging at a rate
of 45%.

This research shows that
social media continues to penetrate parts of the business world at a fast rate.
In all three studies, questions looked at with six prominent social media
(blogging, podcasting, online video, social networking, message boards and
wikis).In 2009, several new tools
were added including Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, and MySpace.

Social networking continues
to be the most familiar social media tool to the Inc. 500 with 75% of
respondents in 2009 claiming to be “very familiar with it” (compared to 57% in
2008). Twitter’s has captured “share of mind” in the first year of being
studied with sixty-two percent of executives reported being familiar with it.

Looking across the three
years, social networking and blogging have have continued to grow in adoption,
the use of message boards, online video, wikis and podcasting has leveled off
or declined. The addition of Twitter (considered by respondents to be both a
microblogging site and a social networking site) in the latest study shows that
52% of the Inc. 500 companies are already using this tool for their business.

Forty-three percent of the
2009 Inc. 500 reported social media was “very important” to their
business/marketing strategy and 91% of the Inc. 500 is using at least one
social media tool in 2009 (up from 77% in 2008). In addition, as they ramp up
their usage, the Inc. 500 companies are also seeking to protect themselves
legally, with 36% having implemented a formal policy concerning blogging by
their employees.

This is consistent with
other studies I have seen in the past two years. It is nice to see the
continued increase in social media use by business. It also makes sense.